


Ellana

by CN7



Series: All I Ask of You [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Family, OC History, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 19:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CN7/pseuds/CN7
Summary: A brief glimpse at moments and history of Ellana Lavellan before she fell from the sky .





	Ellana

His hand is massive enough to swallow her own thin wrist in its entirety. In fact, the strange looking man is the largest elf she has ever seen, with the height of a human and shoulders to rival a dwarf’s.

And she chose to cut his purse. 

She writhes and twists, because if she is caught stealing as an urchin, the sentence is the alienage orphanage—and the children all look so sad there—or worse. His grip is not rough. Indeed, the heat in her shoulder is derived from her own frantic thrashing. It is firmly immovable, however, and renders her efforts fruitless.

“Be still, da’len,” his deep voice insists, using a term of endearment she has only feint memories of and sends her frightened little heart pounding. “Where is your mamae?”

The struggle ends, and she gapes up at the stranger long enough to find rosy cheeks and large brown eyes deep in a wide-set face. His clothing is rugged, not of the silks found upon the merchants of Wycome, and his bushy hair is kept roughly tamed in a bun atop his head, unlike so many of the properly trimmed styles she finds on the streets. 

The strange elf takes a knee to meet her lacking height and slacks his grip. “Where is your mamae, da’len?”

Her hand snaps free and she flees, leaving a shout behind, with only safety in mind. She will hide in the alleys, away from city guards and the market, and wait until it is safe to reemerge. 

Then, she collides into a firm chest of mail.

“Oi!” the obstruction cries. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, little one?”

Gloved hands steady her narrow shoulders, and her heart plummets at the sight of the Templar in her path. 

No, this was never supposed to happen. She only needed the coin for a blanket. In hindsight, maybe she should have stolen that instead. The Templars are just as suspicious as the guardsmen, this one will certainly send her to the orphanage, or ask her if the other children she runs with are mages. Rufus and Gwen say the Templars will take them away to the Circle, make them tranquil, and they will never be seen again. 

Only when a loaf of bread is waved in front of her face does her daze break and she is burned by the rumble in her gut. With eager eyes, she stares up at the Templar, and realizes she has been speaking to her in a hushed tone, nodding in encouragement.

“What’s your name, sweet-pea?” a new voice says, an elven enchantress glides to the Templar’s side, arms laden with lavish groceries from the market.

The little girl knows not to provide her name if caught. That is something the older children have warned about since the beginning. It is better to be anonymous, unknown and unseen, safer. They run together, they stick together, they have the sole privilege of names. 

But, these two may be different, with their open palms and eased demeanor. After all, they fed her, maybe they will not drag her to the orphanage after all . . . or the Circle. She cannot heal scraped knees like Rufus or keep the fire burning in the cold like Gwen.

“Oh, Andruil’s ass, you found her,” the deep voice of the weird elf sighs just behind her as though he has pent up his breath.

His presence makes her eyes go round as the saucers she sees the nobles place their teacups upon. Except, she is glued to the cobblestone pavement of the street with feet as heavy as mud.

“Talwen,” the enchantress greets with a curiously rested hand on the lady Templar’s back. She possesses the same markings on her face as the man, so peculiar and unlike most of the other elves she knows. The mage tilts her head. “Did you lose something?”

“Of course not, sister! We were playing Run Through the City,” the man—Talwen—conspires, winking at the child.

The girl furrows her brow because no, they were not.

The mage hums. “Is stealing a part of the game?”

“Yes, young hunters need to be agile creatures, La’rel.”

“The Keeper is a progressive!” the mage giggles. “Imagine if I came into my magic under her lead. Perhaps I’d never have been shipped off to the Circle.”

The Templar grunts, but the child cannot quite understand why. Her frown disappears when the mages touches her arm, however, and the girl is glad for it. The Templar might have a bow and quiver full of arrows strapped to her back, but she is quite possibly the least frightening adult she has ever encountered. 

“No need to ship this one off,” the Templar tuts, squeezing her shoulders in a more comforting than daunting gesture, and the child knows she is the new topic of conversation. “Not a magical bone in her body.”

Talwen’s brow shoots upwards and excitement sparks across his face. He reaches into the satchel on his hip—the same one the girl was certain could buy her breakfast and shelter—and pulls out a polished, miniature figurine which he promptly extends to the girl in front of him. “I made this toy to sell in the market, but I think you may like it more, yes? Have you ever seen one of these?”

The child finds the wood to be carved away with such intricate detail, tiny floral patterns weave their way around its antlers and across its four-legged body. When she is finally brave enough to accept the gift, the child wonders if such a creature exists in the wild. With little prompting, she shakes her head.

“Thought not,” Talwen says. “Those beautiful beasts are called halla, and they love, protect, and guide my people all over the world. Have you ever been on an adventure, da’len?”

Again, the girl shakes her head since all she has ever known is the sound of the city with its disagreeable merchants and quiet sobs of the other hungry children. She has heard rumors of daring pirates and sailors who make their way through ports around the world and brave hurricanes at sea, and of the dragon hunters, and of the nomadic Dalish. Suddenly, it dawns on her that this man is no city-elf. He does not work as a mail-carrier, servant, or dwell in the confining alienage. Indeed, Talwen is a free man who goes whichever way the wind blows him, and how the girl wishes to be free of the hunger and loneliness. 

When he asks her if she wishes to go on one, she does not hesitate to say yes. 

“Would it be alright if I were to take her back to the clan with me, Eden? Where she can grow up with her own? Properly,” Talwen pleads with the Templar.

Eden laughs. “What do I look like? The non-mage police?”

Talwen offers his enormous hand to the girl in such a tender fashion, suddenly, he is not so frightening. “What is your name, da’len?”

“Ellana,” the girl reveals her voice for the first time.

He turns the name over once and Ellana likes the way he says it. “A good Elvhen name.”

——————

Ellana has never seen so many elves in one place as the Dalish camp. The Lavellans are a massive group, she thinks, even larger than the stuffy collection in the alienage, with well over three-hundred unique individuals. Each of the adults have faces adorned with the winding, spritely tattoos like Talwen, and they all watch her with fierce curiosity.

Her grip around Talwen’s wide, gentle fingers tighten at their focused whispers, but she holds her head high and tries not to frown at their prying eyes.

He beams down at her, and she is reassured by the excitement, just as she was by the novelty of the sunlight dancing on the wild grass. Her tiny feet are sore and scoured with blisters, but there are too many new people to meet to care about fatigue or scrapes.

A young woman with lips drawn into a thin line, sleek black hair and eyes as limitless as the night sky approaches them, and Ellana finds she struggles to read her expression. Then, she smirks, if minutely, and presses a quick kiss to Talwen’s broad cheek.

“Hello, vehnan.” Talwen raises the hand held captive in the girl’s vice grip. “Ellana has come to stay with us.”

“I’m going to become a hunter,” Ellana declares, her small shoulders squared.

Talwen has explained every sort of job a Dalish could have along the way to the main camp. He has spoken of the Keeper and her duty to guide and preserve the clan’s magic and heritage. He’s spoken of the teachers, masters, craftsmen, and merchants. A merchant and master smith by craft, Talwen is an artist at heart and hand-crafted Ellana’s newest and only toy. Pride settles in his voice when he speaks of his wife, Saoirse, and her skill with a bow. She can shoot the knot of a tree from one-hundred yards away, he claims, and she is the most ferocious warrior in the entire clan, capable of going toe-to-toe with a bear all on her own. 

It is this invincibility which appeals to Ellana greatly, and she finds herself a bit stupefied by Saoirse’s ability to part a crowd the way the wind parts the clouds.

“We will see, da’len,” she muses, and it leaves Ellana with the feeling she has something to prove.

——————

Alas, Ellana soon understands it is not Saoirse’s approval which is the most difficult to obtain. Each morning, before attending Hahren Heron’s history lessons, like those on the fall of Arlathan, and Hahren Waylon’s lessons on mathematics, Ellana begs Saoirse to show her how to prowl the plains and forests like a hunter. In three week’s time, Ellana has taken to learning every ounce of the Dalish culture she possibly can, and finds a particular liking towards Andruil, the patron god of hunters. When Ellana asks Saoirse how to speak with her in Elvhen, the the stone chips away from her features.

Neither does Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel seem displeased by an orphan’s presence in the camp. A woman in her middle-years with a penchant for music and an endless appreciation for Ellana’s questions regarding the gods, the valaslin, and her magic. Elven magic resonates across the veil like a vibration, so practical, wild and dense.

It is absolutely not Talwen’s presence she is uncertain of either. However massive, Talwen is a sunny character with a booming laugh and a beautiful singing voice that makes the birds stop to listen. His affection for Ellana is immediate, and grows exponentially when she peaks interest in his habit of tinkering, vowing to build something great one day. It is not long before her tongue slips one evening, frightened awake by the howling wind, and cries out to him as Babae. 

Talwen’s eyes water in a way Ellana will remember forever.

Indeed, it is Meera who she finds to be the most difficult case to immediately win over. Talwen and Saoirse’s daughter, a few years Ellana’s senior but too young to begin an apprenticeship, gazes upon the newcomer with suspicion when she enters their tent for the first time. She immediately implores her parents for answers.

Talwen kneels and introduces Ellana, before tasking his daughter with a very serious duty. “Meera, I need you to do something for me. I need you to look out for Ellana. I need you to protect her and treat her like your little sister. Can you do that for me?”

Meera’s amber eyes pierce the little girl, and Ellana runs red in the face. Yet Meera’s expression remains impassive as she nods, and vows to obey to her father’s wishes.

That does not stop her from dismissing Ellana each time she exits the tent. Even still, Meera has a magnetism Ellana cannot deny, and quiet Saoirse eventually begins to refer to her as Meera’s duckling in jest. Ellana does not quite understand what she means, but finds Meera fascinating regardless with a physical aptitude to scale trees like a woodland animal and steady observations that make her friends laugh and respond to her every whim.

Most days, she rolls her eyes when Ellana scampers after her up trees, rocks, and through the fields that test the boundaries of the camp. When Ellana tumbles against loose gravel one day on a hike, Meera’s arms snap into action like the crack of a whip, and right Ellana upwards so that not one scratch breaks her skin. Still, she utters nothing and stalks off with her friends to swim in the stream on the camp’s borders, abandoning Ellana at the top of a hill.

On evenings Meera slings a small bow over her shoulders to practice her aim, Ellana is at her heels, patiently cross-legged on the grass to watch the spectacle. Meera is a fabulous shot, striking the center of a knot on an old pine time and again, and it comes as a surprise when she instructs her follower to stand and take aim.

“You’re gonna let the flat-ear try?” one of Meera’s friends, Tri’an, blathers. His eyes flick from side to side and there is a permanent curl in his upper lip.

“Yeah, has the flat-ear ever tried?” Bri’an, his twin, echoes.

Their tone lacks accusation, but it tears through Ellana all the same.

Meera bores dangerously straight into their eyes, bristles, and lowers her bow. “Don’t ever call her that.”

“Oh, sorry,” the first apologizes with a shrug.

“Yeah, sorry,” the second agrees. Or, at least, she believes her to be the second. The twins look and act so much alike, always muttering to one another in their own gibberish.

Ellana’s chest puffs, but she knows she must prove herself worthy of Meera’s defense. Meera’s bow nearly drags her arm into the ground with its unexpected weight, and the string takes more effort to wrench back than her adopted sister reveals with each draw. She mimics her grip, fingers curl around the cool bark, and levels her elbow just as she has seen the apprentices do. Meera taps her arm into place and adjusts her stance, spreading her legs further to—as she says—provide a better base. 

Ellana inhales to draw in the crisp scent of pine and drown out the chatter of the forest, and lets the arrow fly. Her heart sinks when the arrow completely bypasses the tree, and blends into the bushes beyond. Disappointment threatens to hang her head, but she denies it and scurries to retrieve the arrow to make a second attempt on her target. Then, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and so on until she finally completes contact with the trunk. The arrow does not stick into the bark, and it lands nowhere near the knot in the tree, but the little girl finds satisfaction in her pursuit of perfection. 

Several years later, when Ellana is appointed as a learner under Meera—a graduated young hunter—she does not expect to overhear her idol openly boast to her friends about how her untrained, completely novice little sister could fire a bow better than the twins as apprentices. She tries to not let the compliment inflate her ego. 

When the comment evidently leads to her own exaggerated performance and careless blunders, she is made to hold her drawn bow in solid form well past two candle marks and sleeping fingers.

——————

Ellana is nine years old and has been Lavellan for more than half her life when she presses her eager hands against Saoirse’s—Mamae’s—belly and feels a new life move. Excitement fills her heart, and a sense of duty washes over her that Meera insists is more of burden than a blessing. She clicks her tongue and grins at her sister because she knows that for all her dryness, Meera merely jests. Besides, she has a firm resolve to make sure this is the happiest, liveliest, most well-loved baby in all of Thedas. 

Not long before her new sibling is set to arrive, Ellana begs Talwen to help her construct a trinket for the baby. Once her lessons and chores are completed, Ellana spends many days at her babae’s side wherever he has set up shop, even foregoing swimming with Hera, Meera, and Seren. Instead, she chips away at a piece of ironbark her father procures, letting the material take shape beneath her tools. The end result is uncertain and she knows the babe will not be able to wear it until they are older, but she hopes it will make them think of her.

During this time in private with his younger daughter, Talwen commends Ellana’s integrity as an elder sister, and laments on his inability to keep La’rel from being handed over to the human Templars. Ellana has encountered her rambunctious aunt a few times over the years during merchant trips into Wycome—always at Eden’s side—but has never truly pressed for an explanation on her absence from the clan.

“We’re a huge clan, da’len, I know,” he says, a strange sadness peeling away the dedicated strokes of his polishing. “So big, we have to make different camps sometimes. Even still, we can only have so many mages. When La’rel came into her magic, we had nearly half a dozen, and that number could be . . . unhealthy.”

Ellana furrows her brow, confused by the contradictory idea that Dalish magic is treasured. Evidence apparently indicates the contrary, however, so she counts up all of the known mages within the clan spread across the massive camp. The number falls well under six, but she nonetheless prays her sibling not be cursed by the gods as a mage.

————

Arlen comes red-faced and screaming into the world with his fists balled tight and eyes screwed shut. His hysterics do not last long, and are caused by the sudden chill of the air, her parents say. She finds this odd because this spring, on what humans consider the Antivan border, is warm and dry, but she reasons infants must simply not appreciate evacuating their home of many months. 

For several weeks, he continues to bawl and wake his sisters in the dead of night.

“Ugh,” Meera scoffs as Ellana moves to comfort her brother so their parents may sleep for once. “I’m so glad we didn’t get you as a baby. No way I could have done this twice.”

Arlen calms as he grows, however, and his sobs gradually evolve into laughs when his sisters throw him silly faces. One rainy day, when Ellana trips Meera into the mud and the two return home looking like clay dolls, Arlen practically cackles, clapping his pudgie little hands, and Meera admits to liking him better. 

Up until this point, Ellana has never considered how drastically different in appearance she is from her family until the arrival of her brother. After all, she dances across the earth with feather-light steps and keeps her head high just as they do. It is not until she catches the way sun reflects itself in Arlen’s straw-colored hair and the liveliness of a creek ripples in his eyes that Ellana finds familiarity in much more topical appearances. 

Meera notices, as well, when Arlen finds a fistful of ebony and yanks. She winces, flaring her nostrils in frustration. Before her temper sets the red in her face, she coos, wrestles her hair back into her own possession, and turns her brother upside down in her arms. He cackles, displaying a mostly toothless grin as she glances down at Ellana and says, “Do you think we can get people to believe I’m the adopted one?”

Many days, when the clan is on the move and the aravhels rock over unsteady ground, he sleeps soundlessly in the sling around Talwen’s or Saoirse’s shoulders. But, when they are camped, he sits up on his blanket and watches Ellana sand down her newest construction, applying levers and gears here and there.

“It’ll be kind of like an aravhel, Arlen. Except it’ll be for just one person and they’ll go so fast,” she tells him, flashing a neatly folded cloth at him. “This will go on the mast. I just need to construct a wheel to steer so they can turn during races. . . . Don’t tell the Keeper.”

Contributed to his inability to speak be that as it may, Ellana discovers Arlen to be quite the confidant.

———————

The world swims. Dust stings her nose and closes around her throat. Voices, colors, and sounds all mesh together under a miserable banner of unyielding heat.

Fire. There is fire in the twisted, misshapen arm dangling at her side. 

Seren’s expression is nearly as distressed as the hem of his tunic, but his hands are firm as ironbark and his voice is steady as a drum. Like the rocks on the ground, he lies when he promises he will return her shoulder to its socket on the count of three. 

“Fenedhis!” Ellana swears, suddenly woeful her father is nowhere nearby to slip a bar of soap into her foul mouth—or to brush her hair back and gush over her savvy, broken invention. “Harellan!”

Her insult seems to be rebuffed by Seren’s bruising skin as his thick shoulders rise and fall dismissively and he murmurs a quick, “Tel'abelas. It would have hurt more to set it later. I am sorry about the carts. You worked so hard on them.”

Panting as the flames of agony recede, Ellana traces his stare back through the dust cloud to the splintered pieces of firewood where her two carts collided at unmanageable velocity. Once sanded down, rails protrude at awkward angles just like the bone in her forearm. Her bottom jaw juts forward at the waste of the finger-drumming anticipated, one-time ride. Or, maybe, to clamp down on the nausea and taste of metal eroding from her gut at the sight.

“Like she can’t fix them,” Meera scoffs between heavy breaths—the first of their spectators to reach the scene at full sprint—and crosses her arms as though they will shield her from the disfiguring sight before her. “Andruil’s ass, you made some noise. Can you get up? We should make ourselves scarce.”

Tri’an and Bri’an murmur their agreement in synchronization, twiddling their fingers at their sides as though expecting a chastising elder—or something far worse and more likely—to leap from the shrubbery like a wildcat, intent on devouring them.

“Not with that arm,” Nia counters lightly.

Ellana stifles the groan that sends her eyes rolling. Be it from pain or annoyance, she cannot reckon to care. 

She forgot Nia stood amongst her tiny crowd—no doubt Seren’s invitee. Proper, poised, principled—uptight, Meera might say, fair, Ellana would contest—Nia. The Keeper’s newly appointed First, and one of the few mages amidst Clan Lavellan.

“Let me help,” comes her predictable, soft-spoken suggestion, as if the words are meant to fall gently like leaves to the earth lest they barb and incite discourse amongst the uncertainty. “Both of you. Seren, you’re bleeding. Mamae will be cross with you if you show up home like this.”

Certainly enough, a gash along the hulking boy’s forehead patiently seeps down his bruising jaw and onto his tunic. He winces when he prods a finger into the wound and makes a frustrated face, but allows Nia’s gentle fussing.

The twins are spooked by a rustle across the glade, hidden between the evergreen. Their nostrils flare and their ears prick as they drum their fingers against their paws, waiting for whatever lurks beyond like cornered prey. Meera’s golden eyes flash around the clearing, and she thumbs the hilt of her sword—the newest weapon she has taken a liking to—defiantly with purpose, and worst of all: reason. 

Babae and the Keeper would have had the sense to prevent their nonsense from the start, warned them the gravel was too slippery to race the sail-carts over. Particularly so close to unfriendly humans. Instead, they will all surely receive the tongue-lashing of a lifetime for jeopardizing their safety—if no violent villagers stumble upon them. Especially the apprentices, who should know better than to allow a child to convince them of reckless pursuits. 

Ellana grunts, “If you all leave now, and don’t say anything, your masters will never know you were here, and you won’t get into any trouble.”

“And leave you idiots to the humans?” Meera hisses. “Mamae will kill me either way, but at least this way she won’t do it in the name of disappointment.”

“There aren’t any here now,” Seren rebuffs, but any effort is too late, and an entire party of shemlen appear across the clearing. 

Laden with angry mauls and strapped down by buckles and leathers of their plundering, their sour stench beats the air and the blood on their hands is not dry. They gather just under a dozen in number, and Ellana knows they are wilder than any rumor of Dalish savages their violent village possesses.

So unlike the humans Babae trades with. 

“Never mind,” Seren breathes, the fear in his voice held back by protective resolve.

Two humans drag a sullen beast by its hooves and antlers, and Ellana’s heart shatters at the sight of the pure ivory, tattered and stained with red. Her lips part and her tongue lolls with a head so heavy, Ellana might have thought her simply sunbathing had she not been so still.

She hears her friends gasps of anger and despair and sees the angry balling of their fingers. The only fist she can form is with her right, and it is utterly useless. Ellana’s heart leaps in her chest at an uncompromising rhythm, and she prays to Ghilan’nain under her breath for her children’s lives, then to Mythal for the very same reason. With luck, they will part ways and be forced to urge the Keeper into moving.

“What’s this now?” one mutters in the common tongue. His beady eyes scan the lot of aghast youngsters on the softened ground, resting rapaciously against the soft curves that have begun to blossom amongst the females in Ellana’s group of friends.

When they pass over Meera, Seren squeezes his friend’s leg with an operable hand, urging her to drop her blade before they kill her. 

Meera has always struggled with obedience, and her confidence is steadfast enough for the twins to follow suit.

“Best state your business quickly, shem. The Dalish do not take kindly to strangers in these wilds,” Hera challenges, feet wide apart, unwavering. Her eyes burn with murder at the sight of the halla on the field, and Ellana is surprised she has kept her temper so closely checked.

“This isn’t your land, little knife-ears,” the first jeers, encouraging murmurs and sinister smiles. 

“And that was not your kill to make!” Ellana snaps. She gestures angrily at the beast at their feet, dragging herself to her feet. 

A hand befalls her uninjured shoulder, but Seren is incapable of falling into his peacekeeping role and insisting the land may be shared if it is respected. The time too late for such a thing. These humans have dishonored the Dalish already, and the only goal is to return home, to tell the Keeper to move the clan elsewhere where they are not so unwelcome and life is safe.

One of the humans makes an unwarranted comment about the riches of halla horns, and one of the twins—Ellana cannot reckon which—releases an arrow on angry instinct. The world rotates in flashes: a human screams and falls, the others raise their swords, there is more blood and dust chocking the wind, her eyes burn, and she knows they live only because of Saoirse’s arms around her and her sister, stroking their hair.

————

On Ellana’s thirteenth birthday, the day she earns her vallaslin and is old enough to begin her training as a hunter, she is shocked to be named Meera’s apprentice by the Keeper. Partly because Meera herself is deemed a hunter on the very same day, and partly because of their uncanny ability to land each other in trouble—such as the time they accidentally antagonize a group of giant spiders. Granted, it is also almost always each other who work their way out of such trouble—such as leading those same giant spiders towards lures placed by human trappers on Dalish hunting grounds, who are none too happy about their arachnid catch the next morning. 

Suffice to say, Ellana is confused by the keeper’s play—suspicious she may intend to temper them both with lessons in cooperation—as she is honored to be her sister’s First. The pride must be mutual because they exchange knowing glance, and honor their silent vigil, guarding over the main camp and reflecting over the blessings of Andruil and Mythal. The morning after, the keeper smiles coyly at them, and sends them off to bed before they begin any training.

“Does your face hurt?” Meera asks softly, breaking the silence.

“Yes, actually,” Ellana admits, rubbing at the tender bumps across her cheeks and hopes the swell fades soon to reveal the beautiful ivory designs of Mythal beneath. “I figured a tattoo would be uncomfortable, but—.”

“From being that ugly,” Meera concludes, and Ellana does not care how much Meera may make her carry during their run tomorrow when she slams her upside the head with her pillow.

——————

“But when will you be back?” Arlen demands from his seat on Meera’s boot, riding her foot like an experienced equestrian. His blue eyes grow pitifully wider and sadder with each piece of equipment his mother and sisters throw into their rucksacks.

“There really isn’t a timeline, da’len,” the eldest of the trio sighs.

This evidently does not satisfy him, and the pout quivering in his lower lip plays on Ellana’s guilt. She wants to tell him they will be gone no more than a month, but Arlathven, the meeting of all the clans in The Dales, happens only once in a decade. Depending on issues of interest, trade and discussions themselves could last for more than two weeks. Not to mention, the blight is expected to create travel complications even as far north as The Free Marches. Which is why this year’s meeting is different, smaller, with only representatives and not the clan as a whole. Arlen is still too young to understand politics are unfortunately complicated, or how being amongst the ambassadors is less a loss of a playmate and more of a great honor.

Before he can begin to cry, Talwen swoops down, pries Arlen away, and hangs the boy upside down over his shoulders, tickling away impending tears. They kiss their girls goodbye, wishing them safe travels, and send them on their way with the keeper and a few other representatives of Lavellan to Arlathven.

—————

The Lavellan aravhel make impeccable time around the southern end of Nevarra, into Orlais. Only upon glancing the Waking Sea do they encounter the obstruction that delays their arrival in The Dales by nearly a week.

Meera’s sudden hand around her mouth is all that prevents Ellana’s gasp of fright from alerting the mindless adversary lurking along their path. She is glad for her master’s decisiveness and experience, and her sister’s protectiveness as she is drawn deeper into the forestry, away from the road they were sent to scout. Meera gestures for Ellana’s continued silence, and draws her bow. Ellana follows suit, displeased their weapons are more for defense than offense against this large party of darkspawn. Indeed, many years will pass before she meets the darkspawn in battle.

So, she and Meera lurk in the shadows, climbing to higher ground to survey just how far the darkspawn roam. Even though the Blight is not known to have left Fereldan, it is not surprising to find so many have surfaced from their caves across the continent. 

Even from a distance, Ellana can smell the rotten scent of death that clings to the stilled air around these vile creatures. Their threatening, muscled bodies are adorned with centuries aged, pillaged armor and weapons, their skin grey and mottled with necrotic sores, and their faces drenched in the blood and flesh of those poor humans they feast upon. 

It is a sight to turn Ellana’s stomach and light the protective fire in her heart. Her people will not suffer the same fate. She will die before blight or blade befall them, and gladly accept the extra days’ travel around the bulk than risk bludgeoning onwards the rest of the way.

————

Arlathven reveals other clans are less fortunate in escaping the clutches of blight. 

Nearly a year ago, towards the blight’s beginning, the Sabrae Clan lost two young hunters under mysterious circumstance. Their bodies never recovered, likely dragged beneath the surface by the darkspawn. Marethari, their keeper, older and more experienced than many amongst the crowd, keeps her expression more tempered than the visibly sagged shoulders and downcast eyes of her first. Haunted by the loss of treasured lives, their clan makes heed to depart Fereldan permanently.

Keeper Lanaya of Clan Verimthar, boldly intends the opposite, and motions for skilled warriors and hunters of other clans to lend their arms against the darkspawn as propositioned by the remaining Grey Wardens of Fereldan. 

“Brothers and sisters, I beg you, stand with us in our darkest hour,” she implores from the Keepers’ Plate—a grey slab of earth elevated in the center of the mob to house important speakers. Her voice thunders across the crowd and she taps her staff against the rock, spraying ripples of magical light across the wild grass below to curl Ellana’s toes. “Blight is not a human or dwarven fight alone. If the darkspawn descend across the world, they will consume us all: our homes, our loved ones, our very way of life will disappear forever. We cannot allow this.”

Murmurs ignite across the crowd. Some strike the air as hisses with curled spines and flared nostrils, rebuking the humans who wrought the blight at the beginning. Others rebuke them with puffed chests and tight fists, springing forward as volunteers. 

Her own clan-mates are less forthright. Seren twists his hands and chews on his lower lip, Meera's nostrils flare hotly, and Nia grinds down on her teeth.

From both sides, Ellana wonders if it is the weight of the fallen souls which cling to the veil around them, or the fires burning in their hearts that draws the cries, “We are the last Elvhen. Never again shall we submit.”


End file.
